...two adults, two kids, and all their stuff wandering the world. (Plus two in college.)

Monday, November 20, 2006

Is this week over yet?

On Monday, I thought it was Wednesday, that's how the week is dragging. If I roll back 72 hours or so, it all started on Saturday...

Rebecca attended a birthday party and carpooled to get there, so the rest of us had some free time to hit the shops for birthday gifts. Ian and I already bought ours, but the kids want to give things as well. Our first stop, as always, was Spencers Plaza. Some people hate that mall, but we enjoy all the little hidden shops. In fact, even in the dark we meandered about and found a florist selling fake Christmas trees and junky imported ornaments. We couldn't stay though long for fear of passing out, the darkness was a result of power outage and the throngs of people were no less than a typical Saturday afternoon, but combine the numbers with no a/c and high humidity and it was a recipe for sweating bodies and aching heads. We retreated and visited City Centre mall instead. A brand new building with a gorgeous movie theater opening on December 1st and a food court with kid zone, what's not to like. Working electricity was icing on the cake. The kids managed to buy their gifts, get in some play time, have lunch and we found padded envelopes and packing materials to mail boxes, so it was all good. We made it home within 15 minutes of Rebecca returning from her party.A short while later and only after ogling the neighbors' carpets and furniture they've unpacked, we changed clothes and headed north to the Perambur area of Chennai. Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine is up there, and has a 6:30 p.m. English service. We'd left the house at 5:45 and at 7 when our driver still couldn't find it (it's a huge Shrine on a main road) we turned around and came home, with a stop at the newly opened KFC for some dinner. It was a bust of an evening. Next weekend we'll try St. Louis, a much closer and smaller church also with a Saturday evening English service.Sunday, we were bored. There's no other way to say it. Eventually, Ian and I took a walk with Rebecca to Cafe' Coffee Day with a couple stops in shops for her to find Christmas gifts. Back home again, Nicholas, Jonathon and I put together Nicholas's decorated turkey for his class. We didn't have the right glue, so Ian and Katherine went back out for glue. And we did a lot of sitting around, reading, and more sitting. Rebecca wanted to swim. Rebecca wanted to play tennis. Not good weather for either of those activities. The kids had already played enough on the computer. The Xbox is broken. Our Christmas cards haven't arrived yet. And on and on. We had an excuse for everything, I think we just wanted to be bored. By the evening when we Skyped with my parents, it's a wonder we put together anything to talk about.So Monday finally arrived with Ian off to work, the kids and I off to school. AISC hosted some of the Harlem Globetrotters Monday morning and by the end I wished we'd gone to see them over the weekend. Katherine was there too, but she didn't stay for school. Once the show ended, we packed up and she saw Dr. John at the clinic who again pronounced her with a throat infection (it's -tonsillitis-) and said no ice cream or chocolate, take 8 days of antibiotic, come back in a week, and they don't take out tonsils until 12-15 years old. I have no clue as to the rationale behind that. None. But if she's still sick in a week, we'll get our second opinion and go from there.Oh, and Ian and I received our third and final JapB vaccination.We came home and I napped. I've been dragging for a while now, and sleeping poorly at night thanks to the boys who have begun climbing into our bed again. Where is my king bed? *yawn*Amazing Race and Lost have gotten boring. Survivor has become really fun. I'm reading a book called Once Upon a Timezone, a funny story about an Indian guy who desperately wants to get to America but is denied a visa (!), gets a job at a call center and falls in love with a customer who calls to complain about her computer. The book was released either May 10th or October 5th of this year, and it was an impulse buy from Landmark this weekend.Speaking of book releases, our friend back home, Jeff Sypeck, has his first book released today 21 November 2006. Titled Becoming Charlemagne, you can get it from Amazon or your local Borders or Barnes & Noble (check out the New Releases table this holiday season at B&N). The book makes a great stocking stuffer and addition to any home library!

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The GlobeHoppers

For those wondering, Germany is 6 hours ahead of EDT.

We're a Foreign Service family currently posted to Frankfurt, Germany after having spent 2 years in Manila, Philippines, 1 year in Lome', Togo (no, not Tonga), 3 years in Chennai, India, 3 years in Virginia, and 4 years in Amman, Jordan. We'll spend 3 years in Germany to graduate the boys from high school, and our next post is TBD 2019!

I am a former Army brat (lived in Belgium, Zaire, Algeria, Niger, visited too many places to list), now Foreign Service spouse. I tag along where ever Ian takes us and try to keep the family sane. Between 1996 when we got married and 2003 when we moved to Manila we lived in Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, and Florida, and visited several other states.

Rebecca traveled to Oman with chorus (2013), Ethiopia with Week Without Walls (WWW) 2014, Qatar with swimming (2014) and volleyball (2015), and Kuwait with basketball (2016). She also went to Amsterdam in 2017.

Rebecca and Nicholas traveled through Vietnam on WWW 2015 and Thailand for WWW 2016.

Katherine went to Kuwait with volleyball (2014) and France with WWW 2014, and did a semester abroad in Cork, Ireland in 2016. She's was in Dublin for her internship summer 2017.

Jonathon went to Kuwait with Academic Games (2015) and had a school trip to Berlin in 2016.

Ian has also been to Ethiopia (2006), Benin (2006), South Korea (2004), Liberia (2016), Central African Republic (2016), Cameroon (2016), Algeria (2017), Morocco (2017), Tunisia (2017), Turkmenistan (2017), and Suriname (2018). He also covers Sanaa and Tripoli (no travel there), Copenhagen and Accra. Ian aided after the Mumbai Massacre (2008), and also went to Bangalore and Hyderabad in India. A life goal for him is to serve in Russia or Canada, or really any place that has a decent hockey scene. He's happy that Frankfurt has the local Loewen team!